Just two days later, Alabama's gymnastics team faced a challenge new to this program. There wasn't a week to rebound from losing a 117-meet winning streak against arch-rival Auburn.

The Crimson Tide had Saturday.

By Sunday, it had West Virginia in Coleman Coliseum for its second two-meet weekend of the season. A 197.375-195.250 win helped ease some of the sting remaining from the other night. That 197.275-197.200 loss in Auburn Arena was the first for Alabama since 1979.

"When the streak was broken, it was this gut-shock feeling because I don't think we really thought it was going to happen ... this meet," Alabama coach Dana Duckworth said Sunday. "Testament to Auburn. They're getting better and better. The Auburn team of today is not the Auburn team of the past. Kudos to what they're doing."

The meet with No. 24 West Virginia became a test of character for an Alabama team still ranked No. 4 nationally.

"Today, it could have been easy to sit back and not make this important, but we made this as important as if we were competing against the No. 1 team in the country," Duckworth said. "And I think that's what the mentality had to be to be able to have what happened on Friday."

Alabama tied its season high on the balance beam with a 49.550 led by 9.950s from Katie Bailey and Aja Sims.

"Really it was a blessing that we got to compete on Sunday," Duckworth said. "A lot of people asked why do you have two meets in a weekend. And it worked out that we had double, which is very odd. I don't know that we really love it, but it ended up that way. But there's a plan, bigger than we realized. And it worked out wonderful that we were able to come back and bounce right back."